Jamieson Track; a stunning Great Ocean Road 4WD Track
Want to explore a fairly easy, but magic 4WD track just off the Great Ocean Road? The Jamieson Track is short, fun, and well worth doing, and is part of many other brilliant 4WD tracks in Victoria.
When we booked our spot at Jamieson Creek Campground, I noted that they mentioned it was the perfect place to explore 4WD tracks, and that ticks a lot of boxes for us. We’d been very keen on finding Otway National Park 4WD tracks for some time, and we were really pleased to see that the Jamieson Track starts right at the campground, literally about 20 metres from our site!
Where is the Jamieson Track?
This track starts at the Jamieson Creek Campground on the Great Ocean Road, and works its way onto Wye Road, about 20 minutes South West of Lorne. You get to it by turning onto Wye Road (and going the other way), or onto Jamieson Creek Road, and heading through the campground.
Where can you go afterwards?
The Jamieson Track ends on Wye Road, and from there, your options are huge. Looking on Exploroz, there are a massive number of tracks going all over the place, and we had no idea where to go, except that we wanted to get down near Skeynes Creek, to drive the part of the Great Ocean Road that we had missed.
We ended up going Jamieson track onto Wye Road, onto Benwerrin – Mt Sabine Road, then onto Kennett Road, then Kennett Wye Jeep Track, then Bird Track then Great Ocean Road, and had a great time. This probably took about an hour of driving, and you could easily do a lot more in there if you wanted to.
Do you need a 4WD?
Yep. I chuckled when we drove up the first part of the hill near the camp site, and around the corner, expecting it to be a gravel road the whole way. There’s a few steps, offset holes and its pretty steep, and your average 2WD vehicle would make it about 50 metres before getting stuck.
How difficult is it?
This 4WD track, and the ones we did after it were nothing extreme. They are fun enough to have it in low range, and to chose a few lines carefully, but its nothing insane. However, bear in mind that we did it at the end of February, and things were mostly dry. There was some mud laying around and I have no doubt that after some decent rain some of this would be quite entertaining.
The only caveat I’ll put here is that we were cruising along slowly in low range and I drove into two little holes, thinking they were nice and shallow, and heard a fairly substantial bang, as our bash plates bottomed out badly and then came back up. I was completely and utterly shocked, and hopped out to see what had happened, but its clear that the holes were much deeper than I had thought, and I ran out of clearance, which hasn’t been an issue much.
We like these kinds of 4WD Tracks, as they are more than a boring gravel road, but nothing extreme, whilst having great scenery.
What’s the scenery like?
I was really glad to drive through this part of the Great Otways National Park on a 4WD Track. We’d seen some similar sights around Aire Crossing and loved it, but being on a 4WD track with no one around is pretty special. There’s huge trees, lots of fern and plenty of greenery, with hills climbs and steep descents that make it pretty amazing. I’d do this drive for the scenery alone.
Would we do it again?
Yep, without a doubt. Being so accessible and next to camp certainly helped, but this 4WD track is a bit of fun, is nice and short and has stunning scenery. If you get a chance, the Jamieson track, and 4WD tracks that connect nearby are a heap of fun.
Here’s the track, via our vlog:
